Above the Unbroken Horizon
by The Noble Rot
Summary: Jesse Hawks is gone, the victim of a mountaineering accident. His sons deal with the tragedy in their own ways, and continue to live out their father's dream high in the mountains of California. Complete.
1. Loss

AN - I miss the old show, folks. My first major crush as a child was on Matt Hawks. The one and only Christian Conrad. Every time I saw him gracing the television screen, I would get the most pleasant little chill up my spine. This is for him, written decades later by a law student who remembers him warmly. And it's for you, the fans who will never forget High Mountain Rangers as long as you live. (The Noble Rot)

Above the Unbroken Horizon

It was never supposed to end like this. Jesse Hawkes was the man who would live forever, and his Rangers would always be there to keep the peace above the treeline. But fate has always had a way of dealing out difficult cards.Dealing them, one at a time, the way Jesse's widow dealt cards in Tahoe.

His sons, his brave, wonderful sons, coped with the death of their mentor in very different ways. Cody needed constant contact. He was always underfoot these days, sitting close to Robin in front of the fire, sometimes crying, sometimes just talking. Or he would join High Eagle on his patrols at dawn. Izzy stayed near him as often as he could...trying to help the young man make sense of the senseless.

"He was a good man, your Dad." Izzy said, not looking at Cody directly. They were seated on a rough-hewn plank bench behind the ranger station, watching for Cutler and Hart to return from a grocery run in town. Cody nodded, his eyes misting over a little.  
"I feel strange without him. Like he'll be home any minute and all I have to do is wait. Wait for his truck in the drive, or his hand on the door."  
"I know what you mean. I lost my Mom a few years back... "  
"But you didn't even really KNOW your mom, Iz! My Dad was my whole life! When he and Mom decided to split up, there wasn't even a question of who I wanted to go with! It was always Dad. I wanted to be him!" Cody took a deep breath, angrily running one hand through his thick brown hair. He felt betrayed and angry that his father had left so soon. But falling from a precipice in the mountains he had so loved seemed a not unfitting end. It was the way, Jesse often told his boys, that he would want to go.

Izzy didn't know quite what to say. He didn't expect the kid to get over such a tragedy so soon. It had only happened a month ago, after all. After a long search, it was Matt who had found the body. Matt who had strapped his father to his back and carried him eighteen miles to the road, then another six to the station. Matt who had walked into the building tight-lipped and pale to inform the rest of them that the search could end, and someone needed to contact the coroner, and was Cody anywhere nearby? Could someone fetch him? Matt had seemed so terribly brave to everyone that day. he didn't weep, in fact no one had seen any sort of grief from him yet. The big blond man with the gentle blue eyes simply did what was necessary, not saying much to anyone.

Jesse lay on the concrete floor of the garage for two hours, covered in Matt's coat, before the men in the white ambulance finally came and took him away. During that time, Cody was found and told the awful news by his elder brother. He'd reacted badly, striking out at Matt and accusing him of lying. Matt accepted the attack, not even moving to defend himself as Cody hit him in the face, the shoulder, finally collapsing into his brother's arms with tears running down his face, helpless.  
And human.  
There was something unsettling about Matt's calm acceptance of his father's accident. But then, Izzy had never fully understood the man. Liked him, yes. Worked well under his command, of course. But understand? Never.

Cody stood up suddenly, jarring Izzy from his unhappy toughts.  
"I need to take a walk. Who's night is it to cook?"  
"Uh...I think it's Robin's. So we'll probably have canned ravioli or something. Stupid pizza kid stopped delivering up this far since that avalanche last year. It wasn't even that big. Man, townsfolk are such pussies sometimes."  
"I'll be back by eight or so. Don't worry, I'll be fine. Thanks, Izzy."  
Of course he would be. The kid knew these mountains as well as his father had. Izzy watched him walk off into te brush scrub, his hands in his pockets, head down against the wind. It was rough, losing the person you loved the most. Even rougher for a kid like Cody. He was turning into a fine young man more and more every day...a man his father would never get to meet. With a last glance at Cody's retreating form, Izzy got up and wandered back into the station.


	2. Love

Chapter Two

Robin distractedly slid the last boxed pizza out of the warm oven. She hated cooking with a firece passion, and tonight in particular the chore seemed almost unbearable. Izzy had said that Cody wandered off to be alone. That was over four hours ago, and Robin was worried. Not that he hadn't been gone for longer periods of time before, but the circumstances were somewhat different this time.

And there was no telling when Matt would be back from taking those lost hikers back to their base camp. She wondered if she should go look for Cody by herself.  
"Hey Robin, can you bring in a bottle of ketchup or something? These pizzas are...um...pretty well-done." Frank called tactfully from the dining area. Robin grabbed the requested bottle and brought it into the other room, sighing.

"It's getting dark out there." she said softly. Cutler glanced out the window. "Worried about Cody?"  
"Yeah. Do you think we should go out and look for him"  
Izzy shook his head.  
"Let the kid be by himself if that's what he needs right now. He's been stuck in our back pockets for the last few weeks, he might need to breathe a little."  
Robin sat down at the table again, picking at her pizza. Frank was right. It was burnt. She grabbed the ketchup bottle and nervously coated the sad little heap of carbon, trying not to worry.

Cody came back at ten, alone and unwilling to talk. He went into his bedroom and closed the door. No one, not even Izzy, could get him to open it again. Jesse Hawkes, the man who would live forever, was gone.

Two hours later, Matt finally came home.  
Robin was waiting for him. She wordlessly helped him out of his white uniform jacket, noticing with disapproval that he was wearing the same shirt as the day before. He'd been up all night again, working too hard, checking the engines in the snowmobiles or changing the batteries in the walkie-talkies. Chipping ice from the radar dish, setting field markers, doing all the necessary busywork that he could find to keep himself from being still and thinking. His blue eyes were cold, cold as the snow-capped peaks he'd been trekking hrough since dawn.  
"You never went to bed last night, did you?" Robin asked, taking his hand in hers to warm it.  
Matt looked down at her, standing there in front of him in the weak yellow light from the open kitchen door. He noticed with a kind of weary interest that her pajama top was buttoned wrong , exposing a few inches of creamy white flesh just above her waistline. She must have dressed in a hurry when she heard him come in.  
"I wasn't tired"  
Robin started to reach up to touch his face, but dropped her hand a moment later. She had always loved him almost beyond reason, but lacked the courage to make the proverbial first move. And this did not seem the time. She settled for squeezing his arm instead.  
"You should get some rest, Tiger. You'll be no good to us if you pass out on the trail"  
"I could use a break, I guess." Matt acquiesced.. He knew better than to argue with Robin when she was being maternal. She led him over to the couch, then turned to add a log to the dying fire in the old stone hearth. No amount of scrubbing could ever quite get the blackened panels of granite fully clean, but over the years the entire area had taken on a homey, lived-in look nonetheless. Matt leaned back against the hand-woven Shoshone blanket draped over the couch, a gift from Frank's grandmother. He felt exhausted, both mentally and physically. The lost hikers were quarrelsome and demanding. They were pathetically inexperienced and should never have climbed as high and as far as they did, becoming lost and endangering themselves. It wasted precious time to rescue people who didn't respect the awsome dangers of mountaineering, but today it seemed like a blessing.

Robin vanished into the kitchen, only to reappear again with a ceramic mug of hot coffee and a plate of leftover pizza. Matt gratefully accepted the mug, but cast a dubious eye at the plate.  
"What is this, a burnt offering?" he asked. Robin blushed.  
"You know I have no talent in the kitchen, Matt. But thanks for the reminder."  
"I'm sorry." Matt sighed, but he made no move to touch the food. He wasn't even hungry. His appetite, which used to be legendary, had somewhat slackened since the death of his father. It wasn't the only casualty. He didn't laugh as much, didn't smile and joke the way he used to. And he didn't like to be touched anymore these days. Robin missed his friendly embraces, the way he would crush her into his arms like a bear hugging a tree. She loved the warm, clean smell of his skin and the soap he used, the faint cologne, the softness of his sweater against her cheek. Those precious few moments of almost-intimacy were what kept her going most days, and she ached as much with the lossof their closeness as for the loss of Jesse, whom she had loved as a father.

The fire was quickly warming the room, relieving the chill that seemed omnipresent in the mountains. In the wan firelight the small lines of tension on Matt's face eased, the muscles in his jaw unclenching. It was good to relax for the moment, here with Robin in a warm room with the rest of the compound asleep. For the forst time in a month, just as Cody was suddenly clamping down in silence, Matt felt like talking.  
"I miss him." he said, staring into the dark surface of the coffee. Robin sat on the floor, tentatively resting her shounder against his knee and stretching her long legs out toward the fire.

"I miss him, too." she whispered. Jesse had been closer to her than her own father, and she'd been horrified by his death.  
"You know, when dad started the Rangers he knew it would cost him a lot. Not the money...he had a bit of that saved up and plenty of friends to borrow from. No, he knew there would be personal costs that would outweigh the financial problems. Mom left, he became estranged from a lot of his friends, and Cody resented him for awhile for his decision to 'go hermit', as he put it. Hell, even Grandma and Grandpa thought he was nuts. But he didn't give it too much thought. He just did what he felt was right, built this place and staffed it with the best people in the field, He knew it was risky, but that's how he lived." Matt stopped to take a deep breath, and when he spoke again it was with a new measure of calm."I know he had some idea that he would die in these hills. He used to talk about it when we were alone, usually on camping trips. He made me promise to take care of Mom and Cody, and this place. That's what I'm going to do, Robin. Take care of everything, and damn me for acting like a cold bastard sometimes while I try to do it. But I feel like I'm going to go insane sometimes, and this is the only way I can control myself. I'm so sorry. "  
He gracefully moved forward and knelt down next to her, taking her by the shoulders and looking earnestly into her face.  
His eyes were so blue, so gentle, so kind. Robin felt a jolt of almost unbearable desire rocket through her like a bolt from Heaven, and she gasped. Matt, mistakenly assuming it was his abruptness that caused her reaction, immediately released her.

"I didn't mean -" he began, but Robin cut off his words by suddenly flinging herself forward and pressing her lips against his. So great was his shock at the gesture that at first he did nothing. But pain, sorrow, grief, even rage can be turned to passion in an instant when the proper stimulus presents itself. And Robin had always been, to put it delicately, the proper stimulus.  
Matt folded her into his arms, pulling her slim body against him and burying his hands in her thick blonde hair. Some part of him rebelled at what was happening - he and Robin had been friends for so long, and he hated the thought of jeopardizing that closeness - but her lips were soft and sweet, her hair was like raw silk slipping through his fingers, her warm body was pressed to his in a way he hadn't experienced with anyone in a very long time. Gently, he lowered her to the floor in front of the fireplace, deepening the kiss and slowly moving his hands down her sides.  
"Robin..." he whispered against her neck when they broke apart. "It's ok, Matt. It's right." "But "  
"No, no buts. I've loved you for almost ten years. And I know you love me, Matthew Hawkes. Now kiss me again, and this time do it like you mean it"  
Matt looked down at her, at those gentle lips curving into a smile, at her hair pooled around her on the dark rug, and the oddly endearing way her shirt was buttoned all wrong. Right or wrong suddenly didn't matter to him anymore, and with more fervor than he'd felt in weeks, he leaned down to grant her request.

Outside the moon hovered high over the frosted peaks, turning everything blue and misty for miles around. The snow fell gently on the roof of the Ranger Station, on the cabins and outbuildings, the woodshed and the single twisting road that led up from the town below. The snow blew against the window of the room where Cody lay awake, tears clouding his vision. The snow slithered down the chimney and evaporated in the inferno, making the wood snap in the hearth next to the thick rug where Robin and Matt made love for the first time.

And the snow fell on the grave of Jesse Hawkes, who was supposed to live forever but did not, who died doing what he loved, and who would never be forgotten.


	3. Hope

A/N - Thank you, Natlski, Darster, Freespirit and Killer BC. I am deeply grateful for your responses. If you have any suggestions on how I can improve the general flavor of the story, or would just like to chat about the show, please feel free to contact me at Also, I would LOVE to know where I can find tapes of the old shows. The Internet is sadly barren. :) 

Chapter Three

When Matt awoke the next morning, he wasn't certain at first where he was. It was dark, near to three a.m. or around that area by his reckoning. And he was seldom incorrect. Years of living in the mountains has instilled in him a very accurate internal clock. But it was nothing next to his father's.  
He rolled over onto his stomach in bed, finding to his surprise that he was naked.  
Then it all came back to him in a flash. The fire, the warmth creeping into the room like a carress. Robin, her pajama top buttoned all wrong, bringing him coffee and sitting next to him in the dark. Their first kiss. And then the rug in front of the fireplace.

He'd been unwilling to stop kissing her for even a few moments, unbuttoning her shirt and sliding the soft flannel drawstring pants down without looking. Robin had responded beautifully, surprising him with her intense passion. He hadn't guessed that she was capable of such feeling. But the way she tore at his clothes, flinging them aside to touch the flesh beneath, and the way she'd pulled away from his lips finally to slide her gentle pink tongue down his chest, his stomach, and farther.  
He shivered, suddenly feeling a stab of regret. No woman had ever reacted to him that way. Not in his entire short history of dating. "Mmmmm." he heard someone moan quietly next to him in bed. It was Robin, of course, curled up on her side under the covers. Matt remembered that they were in her room, having moved there some time after making love for the second time. Tentatively, he slid an arm around her waist and drew her against his body. She was warm and soft and naked, the scent of her skin bringing a rush of feeling to his entire soul. Whether or not this moment was right or wrong, good or bad, destructive or the beginning of something wonderful, he didn't care. All Matt knew was that it felt indescribably wonderful to have her there. The past few weeks had been lonely and awful, and he'd wept for his father in bed at night when no one could see him and he had no reason to be strong. Robin seemed to understand that he needed her.

"Are you awake?" she asked sleepily. Matt kissed the side of her neck in answer, not quite knowing what to say. She rolled over to face him, and even though it was pitch black and he couldn't see her face, he knew she was looking at him. Silently, she leaned forward and kissed him, slow and intimate and comfortable. He enfolded her into his arms, pulling her so close and tight that she gasped.  
"I have no idea what led up to this." he whispered when they broke apart. Robin snuggled her face into his chest, rubbing her nose gently against the soft golden hair.

"I've wanted you for years." she answered.  
Matt would have been lying if he said he hadn't been attracted to her as well. What man wouldn't be? She was beautiful and strong and smart and had a wonderful sense of humor. You could trust her with your life out on the trail, and she was easy to get along with for months at a time when the winter snows effectively shut down the road. But he'd never guessed that she might have feelings for him other than simple companionship.  
"I've loved you, in fact." she continued, slightly muffled by his flesh against her lips.  
"Loved me?" Matt asked, and was distressed to hear a note of discomfort in his voice.  
"Yes, Matthew Hawkes. I love you. I've loved you since the first day we met, when Jesse brought you and Cody here in that junky old blue pickup he used to love."  
"I remember."  
"You were so shy and sweet. I couldn't stop staring at you."  
"I thought you were one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. You had on a tight little sweater and blue jeans with faded knees."  
"I still own the sweater..."  
"Glad to hear it." Matt said, because he didn't quite know what else to say at the moment. Robin laughed quietly and drew back from him, leaning over to flick on a small lamp next to the bed. It was an orange lava lamp that Matt recognized as a Christmas gift from Cody last year. In its dim, shivering light Robin looked like an angel, her hair tangled and wild around her oval-shaped face. She gracefully slid one of her long legs over his stomach and straddled him, leaning down to brush his forehead with a gentle kiss.

_'He really is handsome.'_ Robin thought to herself, looking down at him. Matt was utterly flawless. Golden hair slightly messed, blue eyes sleepy and welcoming and gentle as he stared up at her. The muscles of his chest and stomach were well-developed and beautiful from years of chopping wood and shoveling snow, and Robin was reminded of the statue David. "Please don't feel weird about this. You shouldn't. I've wanted it for quite awhile."  
"So have I, I think." Matt said, and as he spoke the words he realized that they were true. Robin lay down in his arms again, turning her head to watch the orange lava move slowly up the inside of the lamp, then cool and descend. She could hear Matt's heartbeat against her ear, and it was the most peaceful rhythm she'd ever felt.

Three hours later, Robin was still sound asleep when Matt rose for the day. It was early. He pulled on a pair of gray sweat pants and padded out into the kitchen, planning to start the coffee.  
Cody was already there, pouring a bowl of cereal at the table.  
"Hey."

"Morning." Matt said, opening the freezer and pulling out the battered old can of coffee. Cody looked like he hadn't slept very well. He was dressed in the faded blue pajamas that he'd had since high school, his dark hair falling into his eyes, almost but not quite hiding the fact that he'd been crying. Matt filled the coffee pot with water and turned it on, then sat down across from his brother at the table.  
"You ok?" he asked. Cody shook his head, listlessly stirring his cereal.  
"I couldn't get a wink of sleep last night. God I miss Dad. I feel like I've been punched in the stomach." "I know. Me too."  
"Matt?"  
"Yeah, kid?"  
Cody chewed his lip, not meeting his older brother's eyes.  
"You remember when you told me about Dad?"  
It was a touchy subject. Matt leaned back in the chair, wincing as the cold steel shocked his bare back.  
"I remember."  
"I'm sorry. About, you know, hitting you. I was just -"  
"Don't you dare, Cody!"  
"What? I said I was sorry!"  
Matt slammed his hand down on the table, causing the younger boy to jump.  
"No, damn it! You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for! Don't you dare apologize to me! You reacted with grief, I can't be angry at you for that. Besides, you hit like a girl."  
Cody stared at him for a few minutes, then broke out in a grin. It was impossible to be too serious around Matt, even when he felt like shit.  
"You suck." he told his brother, "Thanks."  
"Shut up." Matt told him fondly, and got up to pour a cup of coffee.  
Cody finished his cereal and grabbed a bananna from the wooden bowl in the center of the table. He peeled it methodically, watching his brother.  
"So, did you sleep well last night?" he asked casually. Something in his voice made Matt turn around to level a gaze at him.  
"Yeah."  
"That's good. That's really good. Because I was worried about you, you know."  
Matt took a slow sip of coffee, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.  
"And why is that, may I ask?"  
"Well, it was pretty cold last night."  
"Go on, damn it. Get to the punch line."  
"I thought you might get frost bite."  
Matt threw a sponge at him, which Cody ducked laughingly. Frost Bite was Robin's Ranger handle. Apparently they hadn't been as discreet as he thought.  
"You little weed. Did you tell anyone?"  
"Of course not. Didn't have to. She squeaks like an excited chipmunk."  
"Oh Christ. Thanks a lot, man."

Normalcy returned, slowly and by degrees. The snows came that afternoon, and the tracking dogs were brought inside to protect them from the killing cold. Izzy made steak, turning the seasoned meat meticulously every ten minutes while Frank and Cody played cards at the battered kitchen table. Robin curled up on the floor, her head pillowed on the side of a big German Shepherd named Gracie, while Matt chopped wood in the falling snow outside the back door. No one had anything in particular to say - it was impossible to express what they were all feeling.

"Food's done." Izzy announced without enthusiasm. His cooking was, unlike Robins, excellent. But no one felt much like eating. A sense of gloom permeated the atmosphere - even the dogs seemed to feel it. Izzy had made a few half-hearted attempts at humor, aided by the usually silent Frank, but they gave up after an hour of listlessness.

The darkest parts of winter would be upon them soon, the long nights and short gray days stretching into eternity. Hikers too stubborn or too foolhardy to know better would come up into the mountains even during blizzards, putting everyone's life in danger. Criminals, drawn by a promise of vast wastelands in which to hide, would arrive with varying trails of misery behind them. Orphaned animals would need tending. Avalanche sites would require posting and quite possibly charges would need to be set to safely trigger a few of them. Winter was always busy, but no one seemed to have any heart for the labor except Matt.

It was bitter cold outside where he stood, swinging the axe with a practiced fierceness that no log, however seasoned or gnarled, could withstand. He was sweating, but wisely did not remove the thick white coat that kept out the wind. It would have been suicide to do so even for a little while. Hypothermia was a quiet and deceptively gentle killer, and had claimed more lives than could even be counted. It was what had probably killed his father. Matt took an odd sort of comfort from the fact that, if hypothermia had indeed been the cause of death, Jesse would not have suffered too terribly. In the final stages of the condition one's body simply shut down, went to sleep, a feeling of drowsy warmth stealing across the brain as life slipped away.  
Life, drawn up and out of the shell it had occupied. The light maybe leaving Jesse's blue eyes forever as his body sagged. The part of his brain that knew all the words to the stories he used to tell, the part of him that likes sweet pickles and Belgian beer, the portion of his mind that knew how to play the guitar all shutting down up there alone in the mountains.  
The axe fell from Matt's hand, and he sank to his knees next to a freshly split log. He wasn't a man who prayed. It seemed too much like weakness, like begging for help from a fairy tale. But he covered his suddenly streaming eyes with a gloved hand and drew in a shaking breath, trying to calm himself.

Why not follow? Why not walk off, now, into the hills along the old trails that he and his father had blazed together so many years ago? Maybe find that old pine tree again, the one with the huge spreading base and the wide hollow beneath it. Just lie down, close your eyes, let the cold do its steady, ancient work on this poor mammalian wreck and draw out all the pain. Who knows? Maybe death would be like going to sleep after a very long day. Maybe.

"Matt?" He looked up. It was Robin, bundled into her sleek snowsuit and that silly red hat her mother had given her last year. She held out her hand to him, illuminated by the yellow light from the kitchen behind her.  
"Time for dinner." she said softly, and Matt rose to his feet. He reached out, took her strong little paw in his huge gloved hand, feeling lost and scared and terribly lonely. Robin had the grace not to comment, not to wipe away the tears that sparkled in the corners of his eyes or draw him into a comforting hug. It would have hurt his pride just then. And so she merely drew him in, out of the cold.  
They shut the door against the gathering night, and had dinner in the crowded living room with the dogs.


End file.
